Abstract: Although family‐owned business succession has been widely researched, very few studies investigate the relationship between preperformance and succession. Drawing on the agency and the resource‐bas...

Abstract: The role of the Internet as a tool for participation and organization has been considered the most important innovation in the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign and one of the key strategic factors in Barack Obama's conquest of the Democratic nomination and the White House. This article analyzes e-campaigning in the 2008 election through data drawn from qualitative interviews with 31 consultants and operatives who were involved in the presidential race. Rather than adopting a technocentric perspective, our interviewees acknowledge that several contextual factors enhance or hinder the effectiveness of online tools, such as the message of the campaign, the candidate's personality, and his or her ability to generate enthusiasm in the electorate, together with the campaign's strategic prioritization of grassroots electioneering. Technology is seen more as an efficient channel of preexisting motivations and loyalties than as a driver of these attitudes. Moreover, while the Web has often been characterized as pre...

Abstract: Despite Barack Obama’s momentum in the early phase of the Democratic nomination, the process of selecting a nominee took longer than usual. Obama’s momentum, it seems, got stuck, and the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination was an unusually drawn out affair. Even when it appeared Barack Obama would win the nomination, many Clinton supporters said they would support John McCain in the general election. Why were some Democrats unwilling to join the Obama bandwagon once he emerged as a viable front‐runner – and ultimately the Democratic nominee? In this paper we bring a unique set of panel data from the 2008 Cooperative Campaign Analysis Project (CCAP) to bear on questions about primary vote choice, examining the evolution of preferences over the unusually long and intense 2008 Democratic presidential nomination campaign. Attitudes about race predict vote choice in partisan contests; here we show that (conditional on the presence of a black candidate) these attitudes help explain the dynamics of ...

Abstract: © Ruth Mackenzie, Kate Malleson, Penny Martin, and Philippe Sands, 2010 All rights reserved This book examines the way international court judges are chosen Focusing principally on the judicial selection procedures of the International Court of Justice and International Criminal Court, it provides a detailed examination of how the selection process works in practice at national and international levels: What factors determine whether a state will nominate a candidate? How is a candidate identified? What factors influence success or failure? What are the respective roles of merit, politics, and other considerations in the nomination and election process? The research was based on interviews, case studies, and survey data in a range of different states The book concludes that although the nature and quality of nomination and election processes vary widely, a common theme indicates the powerful influence of domestic and international political considerations, and the significant role of a small group of diplomats, civil servants, lawyers, and academics, often without transparency or accountability The processes allow overt political considerations to be introduced throughout the decision-making process in ways that may detract from the selection of the most highly qualified candidates and, ultimately, undermine independence This is particularly evident in the election campaigning that has become a defining feature of the selection process, accompanied by widespread vote trading and reciprocal agreements between states The effect of these practices is often to undermine the role of statutory selection criteria and to favour candidates from more politically powerful states The book reviews new judicial selection models adopted or proposed in other international and regional courts, and considers a number of proposals for change to promote more independent, transparent, and merit-based nomination and election procedures

Abstract: This paper reviews the current procedure for identifying and listing cultural and natural heritage properties under UNESCO’s 1972 World Heritage Convention, analyses its shortcomings and posits a new approach. It contends that the extant process is contrary to the real intent of the Convention of identifying and conserving heritage of outstanding universal value through a system of international cooperation and, therefore, it does not contribute effectively to realising a representative, balanced and credible World Heritage List. The paper advances a new paradigm to overcome the assessed limitations, principally by enhancing international cooperation to marshal and provide the best technical knowledge upstream of and throughout the process of identifying, nominating and including properties on the World Heritage List. It envisages a progressive inscription process with an enhanced and proactive role for the intergovernmental World Heritage Committee to prioritise, at an early stage of the process, sites m...

Abstract: In the last 15 years, the Netherlands has witnessed the enormous growth of independent local parties and of their electoral support. In order to assess the success of independent locals in the Netherlands, this paper explores how independent local parties distinguish themselves ideologically, organisationally, and operationally. It presents the results of two online surveys of 1,800 independent and other local parties in the Netherlands. Compared to local party branches, independent local parties are more successful in performing the organisational, programmatic and nomination function of political parties. They are spearheading the change to a modern cadre party with politicians and a small number of active volunteers taking care of the party's rootedness in society. Furthermore, they enrich local politics with new political dividing lines, smoothing the entry of new demands, themes, and issues onto the political agenda. Finally, they are proving to be more resourceful in recruiting citizens to ...

Abstract: The Hispanic voter--and I want to say this very carefully--has not shown a lot of willingness or affinity to support black candidates. --Clinton Pollster Sergio Bendixen to Ryan Lizza, The New Yorker, January 21, 2008 The Democratic Party's nomination of an African American as its standard-bearer in the 2008 presidential election created an unprecedented opportunity to examine the role of race in electoral choice. Barack Obama managed to win an Electoral College landslide and, for the first time in a generation, a majority of the popular vote for the Democratic nominee. But Obama's historic nomination and election served as shocks to the political system and to political science research investigating the role of race in electoral politics. On the one hand, some observers were quick to announce the end of race as a determinative force in American electoral politics, suggesting that Obama's race was unrelated to two-party choice and the dawn of a postracial society. By contrast, others raised suggestions during the primary that racial sentiments would hobble an Obama effort in the general election--specifically, that interminority conflict might suppress Obama's vote among Hispanics. (1) With the election behind us, we now can ask what, if any, evidence is available for these claims? In this effort, we explore the role of race in the 2008 election, with particular attention to the possible importance of interminority dynamics in shaping the two-party vote. In so doing, we employ multiple indicators of racial sentiment--explicit, indirect, and implicit--to ascertain the predictive validity of each, using data from the 2008 American National Election Study (ANES). We argue, first, that racial sentiments vary considerably across voters when grouped by partisan attachment and two-party vote. Second, we observe that there is far less variation between Latinos and non-Hispanic whites, suggesting that the attitudinal basis for a strong racially motivated vote exists among Latinos. Third, beyond its effects on partisan attachments, racial sentiment had a unique additional effect on the voting behavior of Americans in the last election, but this effect was significantly attenuated or altogether absent among Latinos. Notwithstanding their similar distributions on measures of race sentiment, Latino voters do not appear to have applied those sentiments to an evaluation of then-candidate Obama. Finally, we show that a similar pattern of results obtains when examining the full range of evaluation and intensity of views on Obama, rather than solely the dichotomous vote choice. Race and American Elections The notion that Obama's election was in any way postracial is belied by the facts on the ground. National exit polls estimate that Obama received only 43% of the white vote at a time when the United States was engaged in two hot wars overseas, faced an economy in complete freefall, and had an incumbent president with some of the lowest popularity ratings in the history of polling on the matter. By contrast, Obama received clear majorities among Asian Americans (62%), "others" (66%), Latinos or Hispanics (67%), and African Americans (95%). By any measure, the electorate remains racially polarized and, in light of the economic and political circumstances of the country during the fall campaign, Obama may well have underperformed what we might expect from another Democrat, although such a counterfactual is not available. Bowler and Segura (forthcoming) argue that race can be realized in a vote choice in two manners. First, they suggest, because race is deeply embedded in the structure of American party coalitions (Carmines and Stimson 1989), racial sentiment is ever present in the two-party vote. If, for example, we examined the racial and ethnic breakdown of the vote between George W. Bush and John Kerry in 2004, we would also find considerable (albeit less) racial polarization. Democratic presidential candidates have not won a majority of white votes since the 1964 election. …

Abstract: Authenticity has always been an essential qualifying criterion for the inclusion of sites on the World Heritage List. Nonetheless, it might arguably be considered as one of the most slippery concepts in heritage conservation. This is testified by the numerous debates on this concept and its changing definitions and guidelines adopted by the World Heritage Committee up until the 1990s. This is also reflected in the profuse academic research in the 1990s, triggered in particular by the 1994 Nara Conference on Authenticity. Since then, reflections on authenticity have faded away in the academic sphere and at the intergovernmental level of the World Heritage Committee. However, numerous fundamental questions related to this concept remain: How have States Parties understood the concept of authenticity, and explained and represented it in their nomination dossiers of sites submitted for inclusion on the World Heritage List? Can different definitions of authenticity be detected according to the geographical location of nominated sites? What happened from 1994 onward? Can changes be detected in the way in which States Parties defined authenticity? Did they integrate the Nara Document on Authenticity in their explanation and representation of authenticity in nomination dossiers? If so, how?

Abstract: The 2008 Democratic primary was marked by divisiveness as notable as its historic candidates. And while Barack Obama won the general election,political scientists would be remiss in studying divisive primary effects only when they are electorally decisive. Accordingly, we examine this largely forgotten storyline, searching for these effects throughout different segments of the electorate. Our analysis pursues evidence at multiple levels, focusing on the illustrative case of Franklin County in the bellwether state of Ohio. First, we use aggregate data and ecological inference to ascertain levels of abstention and defection among Clinton supporters, noting patterns in precincts. Next, we analyze original survey data drawn from individuals observed displaying yard signs, examining rates of participation within this engaged population. Overall, the evidence suggests that the primary produced lasting effects in terms of turnout, defection, and other participatory acts—effects that might have cost Obama the pre...

Abstract: Prior research found that people’s assessments of relative competence predicted the outcome of Senate and Congressional races. We hypothesized that snap judgments of "facial competence" would provide useful forecasts of the popular vote in presidential primaries before the candidates become well known to the voters. We obtained facial competence ratings of 11 potential candidates for the Democratic Party nomination and of 13 for the Republican Party nomination for the 2008 U.S. Presidential election. To ensure that raters did not recognize the candidates, we relied heavily on young subjects from Australia and New Zealand. We obtained between 139 and 348 usable ratings per candidate between May and August 2007. The top-rated candidates were Clinton and Obama for the Democrats and McCain, Hunter, and Hagel for the Republicans; Giuliani was 9th and Thompson was 10th. At the time, the leading candidates in the Democratic polls were Clinton at 38% and Obama at 20%, while Giuliani was first among the Republicans at 28% followed by Thompson at 22%. McCain trailed at 15%. Voters had already linked Hillary Clinton’s competent appearance with her name, so her high standing in the polls met our expectations. As voters learned the appearance of the other candidates, poll rankings moved towards facial competence rankings. At the time that Obama clinched the nomination, Clinton was ahead in the popular vote in the primaries and McCain had secured the Republican nomination with a popular vote that was twice that of Romney, the next highest vote-getter.

Abstract: If Barack Obama had not won in Iowa, most commentators believe that he would not have been able to go on to capture the Democratic nomination for president. "Why Iowa?" offers the definitive account of those early weeks of the campaign season: from how the Iowa caucuses work and what motivates the candidates' campaigns, to participation and turnout, as well as the lingering effects that the campaigning had on Iowa voters. Demonstrating how 'what happens in Iowa' truly reverberates throughout the country, five-time Iowa precinct caucus chair David P. Redlawsk and his coauthors take us on an inside tour of one of the most media-saturated and speculated-about campaign events in American politics. Considering whether a sequential primary system, in which early, smaller states such as Iowa and New Hampshire have such a tremendous impact, is fair or beneficial to the country as a whole, the authors here demonstrate that not only is the impact warranted, but it also reveals a great deal about informational elements of the campaigns. Contrary to conventional wisdom, this sequential system does confer huge benefits on the nominating process, while Iowa's particularly well-designed caucus system - extensively explored here for the first time - brings candidates' arguments, strengths, and weaknesses into the open and under the media's lens.

Abstract: During the 2008 presidential campaign, journalists and pundits debated the electoral consequences of the prolonged and hard-fought nomination contest between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Previous research, typically using aggregate vote returns, has concluded that divisive primaries negatively impact the electoral pro- spects of the winning candidate. It is thought that supporters of the losing candidate are less likely to vote and more likely to defect because of psychological disaffection, or "sour grapes." Using a new panel da- taset that traces individual candidate preferences during the primary and general election campaigns, we are able to explicitly examine individ- ual-level decision making in the general election conditioned on voting behavior in the primary. Although "sour grapes" had a modest effect on eventual support for the party nominee, fundamental political considera- tions—especially attitudes on the War in Iraq—were far better predictors of the vote decision among thwarted voters. Moreover, we find that supporters of losing Democratic candidates were far more like- ly to vote for Obama if they lived in a battleground state.

Abstract: The 2008 presidential election offers a unique opportunity to revisit the hypothesis that a divisive primary exacts a tolls on the party’s general election performance—neither party had a sitting president or vice president seeking the nomination, the Democratic nomination was contested all the way to the end, and advertising data provide a way to gauge both the intensity and tenor of the campaigns. In this article, we take advantage of these circumstances to distinguish between primaries that were competitive and those that were negative and find, contrary to the assumptions in the divisive primary literature, that a close contest does not imply a divisive one. Moreover, we find that Obama was helped by his tight battle with Clinton for the nomination and that the tone of the primaries bore no relationship to his general election performance.

Abstract: This article examines the situations under which candidates in multicandidate races go on the attack (both intraparty and interparty), paying special attention to the timing of the attacks, whether the attacker or the attacked is a front-runner or trailing, and candidate ideology. Using ad tracking data from the 2004 and 2008 U.S. presidential nomination campaigns and detailed polling data from each state, the authors find that timing is an important consideration in launching an attack and that candidate ideology determines who gets attacked. While candidate standing and candidate resources have little influence on intraparty attack behavior, both are important predictors of attacks across party lines. Political scientists have learned much in the past decade about presidential cam paigns and their strategic use of political advertising—especially the decision to go negative. This research, however, generally has not extended to the nomination season, when the strategic environment is much different than that of the general election. After all, nominations generally feature a half dozen or more competing candidates, voting that takes place sequentially, considerable variation in voter knowledge across candidates, and generally low levels of voter knowledge (at least when contrasted with the general election). What circumstances, then, drive nomination candidates to air negative adver tising? Are candidates more likely to do so when they are leading or trailing? At which opponent(s) are such ads aimed? And at what point in the nomination season does

Abstract: The two leading candidates for the 2008 Democratic Party presidential nomination, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, had very similar policy positions and yet demonstrated appeal to disparate populations. Much has been written in the press about demographic differences between supporters of these candidates, but little is known about these groups’ psychological profiles. We used standard personality and moral psychology scales to predict differential favorability ratings toward these candidates, while controlling for age, gender, education, and political orientation. Higher scores on group-based morality, primary psychopathy, and moral relativism predicted relative favorability toward Clinton. Higher scores on individual-based morality, empathy, and global concern for others predicted relative favorability toward Obama. The authors discuss how voters’ personalities and moral concerns may interact with media portrayals of the candidates—consistent with recent congruency models of political preference—especially in cases where policy differences are small.

Abstract: Despite very different historical and constitutional bases for how we nominate presidential candidates and elect presidents to office, as well as very different political processes (sequential versus simultaneous voting), both the presidential nominating process and the Electoral College are rooted in state elections, not a national election, and both create state winners and losers. States that vote early in the nomination process benefit, as do battleground or "swing" states in the general election, especially small population states. There are widespread concerns that too much attention is paid to Iowa and New Hampshire, which vote first in the presidential nomination process (Squire 1989; Winebrenner 1998), and to Ohio and Florida, which often play a pivotal role in the general election. Today, there are repeated calls to reform both the presidential nomination process and the Electoral College. Under riding calls for reform of both processes is a desire for fairness and consistency. One solution that appears to have broad appeal is to nationalize elections by adopting a national primary and a national popular vote, circumventing the Electoral College. In this paper, we consider how the public may evaluate such proposals against competing factors that may reduce support. We use a 2008 national panel survey to test the importance of state-based self-interest in support for reform of the Electoral College and nomination process. We expect that people will support reform of presidential elections based on the interest of their state (long-term factors) and will change their opinions about reform based on electoral outcomes (short-term factors). Our analysis shows that citizen opinions on nationalizing presidential elections through a national primary or national popular vote for president are based on strategic decisions defined by short-term electoral politics and long-term self-interest rooted in an individual's state. We find that citizens voting for winning candidates and those who reside in states that have a great deal of influence in the current system are far less supportive of reform than either partisan losers or those living in states that have less influence under the current rules. We argue that a combination of these short and long-term influences shapes support for nationalizing U.S. presidential elections, reforms that an increasing number of citizens and political elites are taking seriously. Reform Efforts to Nationalize Presidential Elections Support for changing election rules in the United States has been gaining momentum since the contested 2000 presidential election, which was followed by a lengthy legal battle in Florida that ultimately ended with the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Bush v. Gore. The decision resolved the dispute in Florida, which handed George W. Bush the presidency even though the Democratic candidate, Vice President AI Gore, had won some 500,000 more votes nationwide. Only on rare occasions in American history has the popular vote winner been defeated, but the controversial election created ripple effects in motivating efforts to reform American elections. But in other ways, the events of 2000 were not new. Since the Civil War, one-third of all presidential candidates and winners of the Electoral College have been elected with a plurality rather than a majority of the national popular vote (Donovan and Bowler 2004). When one considers those voting for the losing presidential candidate and a losing third-party candidate (Perot, Nader, etc.), a majority of Americans who cast a vote for president are on the losing side about a third of the time in recent presidential elections. Some suggest that the failure to secure a majority may continue in the future with the rise of independents and dissatisfaction with the two major political parties (Blais 2008). No other country uses an Electoral College to mediate between a national or direct/popular vote for presidential candidates and the winner. …

Abstract: The appointment of Sonia Sotomayor and the nomination of Elena Kagan to the United States Supreme Court provides a timely opportunity for scholars, policymakers, and members of the legal community to consider why there are so few women on the world's highest courts. Although singular moments draw our attention to the importance of women on high courts, sadly, this attention is rarely sustained over long periods. While much was made of Ronald Reagan's historic nomination of Sandra Day O'Connor to serve as the first female justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, more than a decade and four nomination opportunities passed by before Ruth Bader Ginsburg was appointed. On this point, Paula Monopoli aptly observes: “[T]he assumption that progress would steadily continue until gender parity was achieved has proven to be wrong” (2007, 43). Unfortunately, this same observation could be said of virtually all other high courts across the globe.

Abstract: The presidential election of 1896 is widely acknowledged as one of only a few that brought about fundamental realignments in American politics New voting patterns replaced old, a new majority party came to power, and national policies shifted to reflect new realities R Hal Williams now presents the first study of that campaign in nearly fifty years, offering fresh interpretations on the victory of Republican William McKinley over Democrat William Jennings Bryan In tracing the triumph of gold over silver in this fabled 'battle of the standards', R Hal Williams also tells how the Republicans - the party of central government, national authority, sound money, and activism - pulled off a stunning win over the Democrats - the party of state's rights, decentralization, inflation, and limited government Meanwhile the People's Party, one of the most prominent third parties in the country's history, which also nominated Bryan, went down to a defeat from which it would never recover Williams plunges readers into a contest that set new standards in financing, organization, and accountability, and he analyzes the transition from the long-dominant 'military style' of campaign to the 'educational style' that appealed to a savvier electorate He also presents key players in new light: he views Bryan not simply as a gifted speaker whose 'Cross of Gold' speech took the Democratic convention by storm, but as a more calculating politician with his eye squarely on the nomination; he depicts McKinley's campaign manager Mark Hanna not as the one-dimensional fundraising machine painted by history but rather as a shrewd, insightful politician who understood what was required to get his man elected; and, he presents retiring president Cleveland as an increasingly out-of-touch, irrelevant chief executive whom the Democrats repudiated in a way no other party ever had a sitting president With the Republicans' star on the rise and the Democrats banished to the South and the cities, the 1896 election was more than a victory of one party over another, it marked the emergence of new ways of politicking that makes this campaign especially relevant for twenty-first-century readers

Abstract: On 4 March 2008, Texas held both primary elections and caucuses statewide to select delegates to the Democratic National Convention. This unique, hybrid procedure, dubbed the “Texas Two-Step,” took place on the same day and was open to the same universe of voters, but the similarities did not extend much further. Participation in the primary, in which nearly 2.9 million ballots were cast, vastly exceeded turnout in the caucuses, which attracted an estimated 1.1 million voters across the state. This is not atypical for caucuses, which tend to attract fewer participants than primaries. More crucially, the two elections yielded different outcomes. With 50.9 percent of the vote, Hillary Clinton bested Barack Obamaʼs 47.4 percent in the primary, but Obama won the caucuses with support from 56.2 percent of participants, compared to Clintonʼs 43.7 percent. The results in Texas mirrored a more general pattern in the 2008 contest for the Democratic nomination, in which caucus participants favored Obama while primary voters were more favorable to Clinton. In the end, Obama won in 14 out of 16 caucus states, while Clinton was victorious in 22 out of 39 primaries. Are such differential outcomes byproducts of systematic differences between primary elections and caucuses? If so, is one system of preference expression superior to the other? These questions and the results observed in the 2008 cycle highlight the impact of institutional variation on voter preferences and election outcomes. Put more bluntly, the rules of the game matter. Scholars and practitioners alike have acknowledged this reality, and have grappled consistently with evaluating the effects of electoral institutions and implementing reforms accordingly. In

Abstract: Despite the contentiousness of advice and consent nominations, the Senate usually rejects a candidate to whom a home senator objects. Using game theory, this article explains the persistence of senatorial courtesy and maps its effects on which candidates succeed. The greater salience of a home nomination allows retaliation and reciprocity in a repeated game to elicit support for a veto, even under adverse conditions. Comparative statics indicate the range of the president’s feasible nominees and show which players gain and lose from the practice. Most notably, the president can benefit from an exercise of senatorial courtesy.

Abstract: Bringing several years of nomination and general election campaigns to a close, more than 131 million voters cast ballots in the 2008 presidential election, choosing Democrat Barack Obama over Republican John McCain. The two-party popular vote split 53.7% for Obama to 46.3% for McCain. With 365 electoral votes cast from 28 states and the District of Columbia (with one electoral vote from Nebraska) for Obama and 173 electoral votes from 22 states cast for McCain, Senator Barack Obama was elected to serve as the forty-fourth president of the United States and the first African American to occupy the office. The margin of Obama's popular vote victory ranks seventeenth among the 36 presidential elections since the Civil War. Sixteen margins were smaller and 19 were larger. (1) Compared to recent elections, it was larger than either of President George W. Bush's victories and slightly smaller than President Bill Clinton's 1996 election. It was about the same magnitude as President Clinton's 1992 and President George H. W. Bush's 1988 popular vote margins. While the size of the 2008 winning vote margin was solid but unremarkable, neither especially close nor particularly large when set in historical perspective, the route to the electorate's verdict was exceptionally unusual. Early readings of the fundamentals in 2008 were extremely favorable for the Democrats. An unpopular president conducting an unpopular war and presiding over a sluggish economy amounted to heavy baggage for Republicans. On this basis, it would be easy to regard 2008 as a simple retrospective election. The in-party was not doing well, so voters made the easy decision to throw them out. On closer inspection, though, the weight of the baggage for the Republican candidate was somewhat exaggerated, and several aspects of the "fundamentals" suggested a close election. Partisan parity, ideological polarization, an open seat election, and nomination circumstances in both parties set the stage for another tight race--not unlike the two preceding elections. The polls leading up to the parties' conventions suggested as much. Then there were other reasons why the electorate may have looked favorably on Senator McCain. He had an unusually centrist congressional record for a Republican presidential candidate, and Senator Obama had a record as a Northern liberal Democrat. One might also have anticipated that Obama would face some resistance as the first black presidential candidate of a major party. The polls coming out of the parties' conventions supported the view not only of a close election, but also of one tilted a bit toward McCain. In the end, what was most exceptional about this election was that it turned on the public's reaction to the financial credit crisis that struck the national economy during the campaign in mid-September. What became known as the Wall Street meltdown was a "game changer." It was the "October surprise" that struck in mid-September and turned the election decisively to Obama. Never before in the history of modern presidential elections had an event like the Wall Street meltdown struck in the middle of a campaign and effectively changed the course of the election. A Democratic Year Before the protracted nomination struggle between Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama was settled, and even before the unusual Republican nomination contest drifted to Senator John McCain, the conventional wisdom was that 2008 would be a banner year for the Democrats. There was widespread unhappiness with the direction of the country during President George W. Bush's second term. Between April and July 2008 in four Gallup polls, a mere 15% of respondents on average said that they were satisfied "with the way things are going in the United States at this time." (2) The verdict about the performance of the Republican administration could hardly have been clearer or more negative. In late July, Alan I. Abramowitz, Thomas E. …

Abstract: We use the list-experiment methodology to address three questions raised by the presidential candidacy and election of Barack Obama. First, to what degree did white voters hold feelings of racial antipathy toward blacks as a group in 2008? Second, were those feelings manifest in their response to Obama's candidacy and subsequent election as president? Third, to what degree did whites actually take pride in the nomination and election of an African American to the nation's highest office? Our analysis of four statewide surveys in Florida shows that few white voters were upset by Obama's electoral achievements, and many took some pride in his historic candidacy and election. Nevertheless, substantial racism still appears to linger in Florida.

Abstract: This paper examines the relationship between reversals of federal district judges and the votes of the ABA Standing Committee in rating the judges at nomination. The primary sample comprises 94,665 appellate dispositions of 533 judges appointed by Presidents George H.W. Bush, Clinton and George W. Bush. Estimation techniques include hierarchical linear models with random effects, as well as models without random effects. It is hypothesized lack of unanimity within the ABA committee is in part caused by the candidate being perceived as having an ideological bent and such a nominee, if confirmed, is more likely to be reversed. Nominees are, or the nomination process is, qualitatively different following the presidency of George H.W. Bush. Lack of unanimity is much more common in the later period. The relationship between lack of unanimity in the ABA committee voting and likelihood of reversal has changed over time. It has increased for judges appointed starting with President Clinton, primarily in appellate dispositions presenting non-procedural issues. Similar results, albeit with smaller t-statistics, are found estimating the likelihood of a Shepard's warning signal within a sample of 131,931 district court opinions. Potential censoring arising from the ability not to issue a written decision captured in Lexis may account for the decreased significance. Relative to judges rated Qualified, for judges appointed following George H.W. Bush's presidency, there is some evidence of a negative relationship between reversals and judges rated Well Qualified, which appears generally to be confined to appeals involving matters of procedure (as opposed to non-procedural legal doctrine). Somewhat surprisingly, there is some evidence of a negative relationship between the likelihood of reversal and the judge being rated Not Qualified. However, the commissioning of a judge rated Not Qualified is so rare that conclusions concerning the Not Qualified rating may well be unwarranted.

Abstract: 1. Happenstance and Reforms 2. Presidential Nomination Politics at the Dawn of the 21st Century 3. Is This a Fair Way to Select a Presidential Nominee? 4. Alternative Methods for Nominating Presidents 5. Oddities, Biases, and Strengths of U.S. Presidential Nomination Politics

Abstract: This study investigated students’ preference on teacher’s questions and questionings techniques and more importantly on how they could facilitate or impede their learning. The results on teacher’s questioning techniques showed that random nomination was more preferred than pre-arranged format nomination. In addition, techniques of nominating volunteering students and of giving wait-time were disliked by most student-respondents. As for types of question, the yes/no question was favored by most of the respondents. Different from the yes/no question, the number of respondents leaning forward to the analysis question, questions about fact of life, and questions to state opinion did not show a significant difference from the number of those leaning against the same questions.

Abstract: Previous empirical research on US Supreme Court nominations has largely overlooked the influence of the departing justice. But the theory of reference dependence suggests that the departing justice may serve as a reference point for persons considering a nomination to the Court. Analysis of Supreme Court nominations between 1953 and 2006 provided evidence for the theory. Senators were substantially more likely to oppose a nomination the more the nomination had the potential to move the ideological ideal point of the vacant seat from the senator. The Senate Judiciary Committee chair was also more likely to delay confirmation hearings the more unfavorable a seat change was to him. However, presidents did not appear to constrain their nominations based on the ideology of the departing justice, and justices did not appear to systematically retire from the bench for political reasons, indicating that the influence of the departing justice is not always present or strong in each stage of the appointment process.

Abstract: Nomination is a process whereby a policyholder who purchases the insurance policy should name someone to benefit from the policy in the event of the policyholder’s death. Nomination is purposely performed to ensure the beneficiaries receive the takEful benefits promptly. The current practice of the nomination clause in family takEful operation is basically vague because the Takaful act 1984 does not expressly provide any rule to that effect. This study aims to examine the status of nominees for Muslim participants and non-Muslim participants in family takEful as stipulated in the takEful nomination form. it is significant to clarify the status of the nominee, either as a beneficiary or an executor, in order to avoid any misconception among the legal heirs in the future. besides this, the study also seeks to assess how far the related concept of hibah to the nomination in family takEful is currently implemented by the takEful operators in Malaysia. Hibah seems to be an alternative for Muslim participants to allocate the takEful benefits to the right beneficiaries without adhering to the islamic law of inheritance (farE’iI). This study adopts the document analysis to identify whether the takEful nomination form is standardised and clarified in respect of the status of the nominee for each takEful operator in Malaysia. Samples of eight licensed takEful

Abstract: When we think about the scarcity of female politicians, social and cultural explanations usually come to mind. We think about the constraints of traditional gender roles, inequalities in women's socioeconomic status, and the dearth of women candidates. In other words, we tend to think about candidate supply. In doing so, we often neglect the demand for women candidates. But we need to ask: are political parties recruiting, nominating, and supporting women candidates? [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Because of their role in candidate selection, parties arc crucial to women's election to office. Parties arc particularly important in closed-list proportional representation systems. But parties matter even in countries with comparatively weak political parties such as the United States. A focus on the United States is instructive for this reason. The existence of primaries in the United States can curtail a party's ability to control the nomination, particularly if the party remains neutral during the primary contest. Yet even in the United States, parties recruit and endorse candidates and discourage candidates from running. Too often, political parties have been an obstacle that women must overcome. But the US case suggests that women's organizations and movements, women leaders, and women voters are the keys to making parties a help rather than a hindrance to women's representation. Women and Political Parties in the United States The feminist scholar Jo Freeman has characterized women's inclusion in US parties as a long struggle for recognition--a story not unlike that of women around the world. Historically, the major parties were obstacles to women's advancement in US politics. The opposition of both the major parties--the Republicans and Democrats--to women's suffrage helps explain why the fight for suffrage was such a long one. Women's rights activists called for the vote in 1848, and over the next half century, women were gradually able to win voting rights in some states. But it would not be until 1920 that women as a class would achieve the vote. On the eve of women's enfranchisement, both parties became interested in winning women's votes and worked to incorporate women into party committees. But neither party sought to elect women to office, and women did not wield significant influence within either party. Through much of the 20th century, women candidates were often sacrificial lambs: they won party support for races the party was likely to lose. Today, the electoral competitiveness of women candidates in legislative elections arguably means that the parties are no longer averse to fielding women candidates. Barbara Burrell of the University of Northern Illinois contends that the parties have been very supportive of women candidates and proposes that strengthening the political parties would improve women's representation. Nonetheless, women's numerical representation in US politics lags behind comparable democracies. Data from the Center for American Women and Politics (GAWP) at the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University shows that women constitute less than one-quarter of all state legislators and only 17 percent of members of Congress. In recent years, the presence of women in elective office has stagnated. Moreover, the ability of women to win office appears to depend on geography. CAWP's data shows that women are nearly 40 percent of state legislators in some states. In other states, though, women are fewer than 10 percent. If women arc reaching office--or not reaching office--we need to look at the role of parties to help us understand why. Why were women 54 percent of voters in the 2008 elections but only 24 percent of state legislators? New CAWP Report on U.S. State Legislators We recently conducted a survey of state legislators from all 50 states in order to understand the flagging numbers of female elected officials. …